Avalon
by asphaltfaerie
Summary: Salvation doesn't have to be an island--sometimes, it can be another person. (AuronXLulu)


Yuna had been watching Lulu stare distractedly at the flap of their small tent for many minutes. Yuna had kept her eye on the older woman as she had readied herself for a much needed few hours of sleep—after the Thunder Plains and trekking around in the Macalania Forest for who knew how long (admittedly, they were somewhat lost after having strayed off the beaten path), Yuna found herself grateful for even the scant few hours they had decided to stop and rest for.  
  
Lulu, sitting perfectly still and unmoving, had not even looked at her charge once as she readied for bed. This was very unusual to Yuna, for the black mage was usually watching her like a hawk, no matter what she was doing. Tonight there seemed to be something that had taken over her mind entirely. The young summoner suspected that Lulu's thoughts might have been of Chappu, as they sometimes were, but she didn't want to presume and offend her guardian. Instead she glanced at the ornate hair sticks that Lulu had laid aside for the evening some fifteen minutes ago, and then looked to Lulu who sat with her feet tucked neatly underneath her, hands in her lap, facing the flap of the tent.  
  
Yuna cleared her throat softly. "Lulu?" There was no reply on the first murmur of the mage's name. Yuna scooted a bit closer and leaned towards Lulu slightly, taking care to stay out of what could have been considered the other woman's personal space. "Lulu?" she tried again, a bit louder this time. The second utterance of her name was acknowledged; Lulu's head turned halfway to look back at Yuna over a curtain of impossibly long onyx hair that was seldom worn free. Over the years, Yuna had grown accustomed to the intensity of her friend's gaze, and simply gave a warm, inquiring smile in the face of the unwavering gaze she was on the receiving end of.  
  
"Are you troubled?" she asked simply, not knowing how else to phrase it. She was attempting to be as gentle and unobtrusive as possible.  
  
Lulu blinked and turned her eyes from Yuna to stare at the wall of the tent. "Not particularly," she said, and then looked back to Yuna with a smile full of assurance, a smile that was saved just for her. "Not quite ready for bed, perhaps." The smile was hard to keep, for she was lying through her teeth.  
  
The summoner bought it, however, and nodded understandingly. "But it's been such a long day, Lu-chan. Aren't you tired in the least?" she asked timidly, like a child would ask its mother the same question.  
  
Lulu reached around and brushed her long-nailed fingertips across Yuna's soft, round cheek. The mage's smile was hypnotically calming, designed for the good of placating her charge, easing her worries, and prompting her to smile back. "Guardians never tire," she replied, with a sisterly tease in her low voice, "especially when they have to deal with a ball of pure mischief such as yourself."  
  
Lulu's well-honed act struck home and got its proper reaction; Yuna giggled and gave the older woman's hand a little squeeze. Yuna was a good soul, albeit naïve—Lulu had learned to react accordingly over the years. Sometimes the young summoner made the mage feel as if she were dealing with someone whom had lived in a bubble all their life, and didn't know evilness or deceit. They had all lived quite a charmed little life in Besaid; Yuna, Wakka, and Lulu.  
  
It just happened that Lulu had been the first one to have the illusion shattered, rather abruptly, when Chappu died. Wakka went on with life, with blinders on, denying that things were the way they were, while Lulu went on to see things for what they really were.  
  
"I'm just not ready to go to sleep yet," Lulu explained, shifting her weight and heading towards the flap of the tent. Yuna looked at her questioningly, head cocked slightly to the side, forehead crinkled in worried thought. "I'm only going to go for a little walk right around here, alright? I shouldn't be gone very long." Lulu noticed that the worried look that Yuna was giving her wasn't fading, so before she ducked out the flap of the tent, she gave another smile. "Don't frown at me so, Yuna."  
  
"Shouldn't you take Cait with you?" the summoner queried, indicating the noxious doll that lay in an inanimate heap in the corner of the tent. Lulu gave a little chuckle.  
  
"My dear," she replied, "there is more power in a single one of the spells within me than there is in my poor Cait's entire body." She winked at the doll and it stood, dancing a pathetically adorable little dance, causing Yuna to giggle a bit. She winked at it again and it crumpled, inanimate once more.  
  
"I'll be back in a bit," Lulu said, with an air of finality, and disappeared out the tent's flap, leaving Yuna to herself.  
  
The mage walked silently out into the forested night, glancing at the other tents set up, all set up within close range of each other. An almost undetectable breeze blew down through the thick canopy of the glowing forest and caused the loose mass of Lulu's hair, which, when unbound, fell to far past her waist, to catch a bit and a few errant tendrils here and there streamed behind her. She was walking in a definite path, although she wasn't quite sure of where she was going, exactly.  
  
As she made her way over a group of root entangled, moss-covered boulders, her fingertips brushed past a tiny clump of flowers whose petals closed at the touch, and disrupted a small group of fireflies who flew off into the night aglow. She felt out of place in the forest; a dark thing in a haven of light, a place that would be home to faeries in storybooks. Lulu felt too corrupted, too jaded to fully appreciate the beauty of forest as someone like Yuna, or even Tidus would. To her, the forest was a precious place that would more than likely one day be destroyed by the foolishness of humans and their endeavours.  
  
Nothing was safe from humans. No humans were safe from Sin. Destruction begot destruction.  
  
It was a cycle, of sorts.  
  
Calm would come eventually, that Lulu knew. She was confident that Yuna was competent and skilled enough to be the one to bring about a new Calm, just as her father had been the one to do it ten years ago. But what would come during the Calm? The same things that came during every Calm; since humans were no longer busy worrying about how to save themselves from Sin, they were busy worrying about how to outdo each other, how to outmaneuver each other, coming up with new and more inventive ways to prove how great they were. They would become too ambitious, too boastful, just like the humans in the days of the fabled Zanarkand, and once more Sin would be reborn, and the cycle would start all over again. It was a vicious cycle that Lulu simply didn't see an end to because she felt that she knew humans too well.  
  
She remembered, faintly, her mother telling her when she was very young that to be accepting and understanding of life was to enjoy life.  
  
Lulu had at one time enjoyed life, but that was before she understood it and once she understood it she could not accept it. She knew it was folly to rebel against all that was the ugly truth forever, but she couldn't stop herself from doing it. Something deep within her cried for morality, for peace, for a way of life where humans could live simply with what they were given, and realize that it was no prize to prove yourself better at the cost of another human. She knew that she was holding her breath waiting for that way of life.  
  
Absorbed thusly in her thoughts, Lulu had wandered far enough to reach a small creek that ran through the forest, and she made her way down the rocky, overgrown bank and crossed a few mossy stones that led her into the middle of it. The forest was aglow. The scant light that made its way through the thick halo of leaves atop the trees reflected off the clear water and made it gleam silver, and here and there Lulu sighted a night- dwelling butterfly or a firefly. She wished every place in the realm of humans could be like the forest, and that humans could love it and accept it for what it was instead of trying to improve it. Given the right circumstances, a place like the forest was a part of a secret dream that she kept hidden deep within her mind, a hope for what life would one day be like, no matter how silly the hope. No matter how silly the hope, she couldn't seem to kill it completely.  
  
For she knew that no matter how caustic, warped, or jaded the person, that everyone had dreams. Even people like herself.  
  
But even there, in the forest, something felt not right; not only that Lulu herself felt out of place in the forest, but something else felt out of place as well. She could sense a sort of bend in the peaceful vivacity of the forest.  
  
"You're following me," a voice accused suddenly, from behind her.  
  
Lulu whirled, her skirts and her hair whipping in the air audibly in a black torrent, a sudden unknown rage smoldering within her. Her hand raised up in a graceful fan of fingers, akin to ancient statues that monks prayed to, a lightning spell on her lips. Her hand slowly relaxed and dropped to her side when she found herself gazing into the eye of Auron, from a distance. He was standing on the side of the creek that she had come from, in the protection of a strange tree that had grown down the side of the steep bank, causing most of its trunk and massive roots to be exposed. The ground near his feet was a mess of roots where the tree had sustained its life by burrowing down into the second level of ground.  
  
He had been standing there all along and she hadn't even noticed him when she came down the bank and wandered out into the middle of the creek, entranced.  
  
"First you come to me last night in front of the agency," he continued, deadpan, "and now you follow me out into the middle of a forest—unkempt and all. Once again, the evening's topic seems to be whether or not you should be asleep at this hour."  
  
Lulu felt as if she should be defending herself. "I didn't follow you; I followed my feet, and they brought me here. I didn't even see you leave the tents."  
  
He clasped his hands in front of him and continued to stare her down with his good eye. Auron appeared statue-like in the silver light. "I have been here for quite some time."  
  
Lulu, unaware of the way the silver light that fell upon Auron also fell upon her, appeared as less of a statue to Auron and more of a shadowy elfling or nymph. A corner of her mouth curved up in the mysterious little smirk that Auron found himself seeing more and more of recently.  
  
"We must stop meeting this way," she said, almost snickering. "We sneak up on each other and one of us tries to kill the other one." Her smirk grew larger and even more enigmatic at the mention of them trying to kill one another. Auron felt he knew what she was smirking about.  
  
"But I suppose it would be rather difficult to kill someone who is already dead," she added, a moment later, confirming Auron's suspicions. He gave a smirk himself, hidden by his cloak, and looked towards the ground, briefly.  
  
"You misunderstand the nature of it," he said to her, looking back up at her as she folded her arms across her chest and stood in the middle of the creek. The way her skirt belled out and hid her feet and the rock she stood upon made it appear as if she was standing directly upon the water's surface. "I can be killed," he assured. "I'm just as alive as anyone else—except when it comes to the matter of a soul, because, well… I have none. My body is just as bound to this earth as anyone else's; my heart beats, my lungs take in air, I need food and water to survive."  
  
Lulu frowned deeply, presented with a problem. "What happens when you die?" she asked of him, and Auron frowned as well, although it wasn't as visible as Lulu's frown.  
  
"I know not," he replied truthfully, and shrugged a bit with his eyebrows. "I honestly do not remember what it was like to die the first time, either."  
  
Lulu said nothing. Her face was unreadable—either she was disturbed by his statements, or was in thought about them, or simply did not care. He wagered that it could have been any of the three, equally.  
  
"Then how do you know that you are dead?" she asked, finally, whirling around on the water, and standing with her back to Auron once more. Her hair flew around her and the black strands glinted silvery in the light. He closed his eyes. It was sights like that, sometimes, that made him wonder if he really was dead.  
  
It was difficult to put into words, and he found himself utterly incapable of doing it. It wasn't a matter of hard, black and white facts that one would face when they came to the realization that they were dead, but more of just that—a sudden realization. Auron had felt his body realize that it was no longer whole, no longer belonging to the realm that he was masquerading in—plus, the curious gaps in his memory that had no explanations served to help him come to his conclusion a bit as well. "I'm dead. Trust me."  
  
She turned to look at him again, and no words were exchanged. Apparently, she had no snappy reply for his blunt reassurance that he was, indeed, deceased, and he had no reassurances to offer that it wasn't as terrifying as it sounded. Looking at her then, Auron realized that he had no idea how old Lulu was. She appeared old, at times, but then, looking at her in that light, with her hair out of its severe bun and braids, she looked very, very young to him. He was sure that he probably appeared much older than he actually was; he was dead, so he was sure he didn't really have an official age anymore, but for supposedly being thirty-five, he was an old thirty-five. It was strange how little things like light and the way her hair was could make that much of a difference.  
  
Lulu cocked an eyebrow up high as Auron neatly removed his perpetual sunglasses and stowed them away within his cloak, and then arranged the cloak so it no longer covered half of his face. For the first time since meeting him, his entire face was visible to her, and it was not unappealing. The scar that made his eye lame ran down his cheek and ended right above his mouth. Frown lines creased the areas around his eyes, mouth, and his forehead heavily, and a good amount of stubble graced the lower half of his face. For the wear of the years, fighting, life, and death, Auron was still a surprisingly attractive man. Undoubtedly when he was younger and in his prime, he had been quite a sight to see—and to Lulu, he still was.  
  
She became aware of the fact that he was holding a gloved hand out to her. She felt silly when he held his hand out to her like that, like a little girl being coaxed out of hiding by her father. Auron momentarily withdrew his hand, inspected it for a moment, and then pulled the glove off and stuck that in his cloak as well. Then, that action completely, he re- extended his hand to her and waited with an absolutely priceless look on his face. She could almost picture him younger, then; waiting on the decision of a girl, waiting for an acceptance or a rejection.  
  
Slowly, carefully, surely, she stepped towards him on the stones that she had used to get to the middle of the creek. As she reached him and grasped his hand, he extended his other to her and, reaching, grabbed her other hand that was idle at her side. Lulu stepped down onto the bank and looked up at Auron, who looked down at her just as solemnly as she was looking up at him.  
  
"I feel like I don't belong here," he said simply, after a moment's silence. "This is a place for young, beautiful things. I am no longer as young nor as beautiful as I used to be."  
  
"As we will all be, one day," Lulu countered, and then frowned, looking down at the ground. "I feel as if I don't belong here, either."  
  
He looked up and past her, and over her dark crown of hair that was being hit just right by the light, in order to give her a shimmering white corona, like saint. He blinked at an errant firefly that made its lazy, bumbling way over the water, casting a little greenish reflection of itself on the water. On the other side of the bank, a leaf fell off a tree and somersaulted gracefully to the ground. Auron looked down to his feet, and as he moved one of his feet slightly, his boot gently tapped a delicate little blue flower that drew closed, shyly, at the touch.  
  
He looked back to Lulu, who stood there patiently, hands still locked within his one ungloved and one gloved. "The Isle of Avalon," he said, finally, in a murmur.  
  
Her eyes dimmed, for a moment, it looked like they were filling with tears. She diverted them downward, and he could no longer tell if they were or not. When she spoke, her voice was listless and without hope. "Avalon is a thing from a children's story," she whispered. "A faerietale. A dream—and dreams…dreams…I hurt/I."  
  
For the second time in as many days, Auron pulled Lulu to him, but this time, he only held her tightly, his hands lost in the waves of her hair. He held her there for a long time in silence, disturbed by her confession to him—IDreams hurt/I. He wasn't sure if she was crying or not, for she kept her face hidden from him, but if she was crying, then she was doing so very quietly and discreetly. After a long time of silence, Lulu looked up at him, and her face was indeed tear-streaked, and her eyes brimming with water. His ungloved hand brushed her bangs out of her eyes, and suddenly, she offered him a weak, genuine smile that was not the customary smirk, nor the patronizing smile he had seen her offer Yuna a million times before.  
  
"But I keep dreaming," she breathed, fresh tears rolling out of her eyes, and she did not bother to duck her head to hide them. She wore them proudly; as she should have, and Auron had never seen anything more beautiful in his entire life.  
  
"So do I," he murmured in reply, his voice rough in its lowness. He returned her fledgling smile and stooped to bury his face in her neck, in her hair, as she continued to cry; but this time, she did so with a smile upon her face.  
  
Auron leaned his head so that his mouth was directly next to Lulu's delicate seashell ear, his cheek being dampened by her cheek, and to her he whispered:  
  
"IWe/I are Avalon." 


End file.
